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Issue with new X: Steering/Parking/Airbag all out; any clues as to cause?

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boaterva

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
I'm just wondering if anyone has clues or history what this could be before I hear back from the SC. I figure it has to be something 'general' (like a overall sensor board, is there such a thing?) because of the nature of the beast.

Last night as I was calling Customer Support about the Homelink issue to get their answer as to when a fix is coming ('in a release coming soon' as it is a known issue, I did find out), and as I was trying to break Homelink by doing things like stopping charging and unplugging, I, all of a sudden, got these alerts:

Car needs service:
Parking Assist
Steering Assist
and the Air Bag light was on.

FWD doors also don't open, which makes me think their sensors aren't working either, perhaps?

I was on hold for Customer Support at the time, and when I got to them, they had me reboot (turn off/on) the car, which I had already done, for a longer time (two minutes), with no luck.

They also ran some diagnostics, and concluded a flatbed was needed (mainly because of the air bag alert, but because of the lack of power steering also). The car was picked up this morning and now is at Tysons waiting to be looked at. (Backing it out of the garage, I can tell you, I wouldn't want to drive more than 100 feet without power steering! :D )

Has anyone had a similar 'general sensor failure' before?

Going to check with them shortly to see if they have any ETA, and on the status of a loaner, which I didn't get last night, since I had no idea on how quickly this might be resolved.

(Total miles is currently only 220 since the first week the car was at the wrappers!)

Thanks for any comments on similar issues anyone has!
 
My only guess is a blown fuse.
Now, that is an interesting idea. I was going way too high tech.... You would think remote diags could have determined that, if so. Let's see what the SC comes up with. They have it inside and are looking right now.

And it makes sense, as it happened right when I unplugged from charging (no, don't ask me why, some transient in some circuit?). Just the point that it wasn't just sitting there.... :D

Any other car with a service manual and open fuse boxes, I might have looked myself....
 
One fuse box is next to the accelerator. It’s so user unfriendly to get access to it. When I unplugged one of them all the stuff came on the dashboard like car needs service and AEB disabled etc. So it sounds like you might just have a blown fuse. Unfortunately they can’t tell if a fuse is blown or not remotely.
 
One fuse box is next to the accelerator. It’s so user unfriendly to get access to it. When I unplugged one of them all the stuff came on the dashboard like car needs service and AEB disabled etc. So it sounds like you might just have a blown fuse. Unfortunately they can’t tell if a fuse is blown or not remotely.
Well, on a car two weeks and 200 miles in, you can understand my hesitation.... :) If that's really it, should be a quick fix!

Thanks for the info, all!
 
Now, that is an interesting idea. I was going way too high tech.... You would think remote diags could have determined that, if so.
....
Unfortunately its a yes and no type of answer. The remote diagnosis system should be able to see the Can bus, if the fuse is blown it should leave a low battery error in the systems that are out and errors from other systems not being able to communicate.

Where the hands on come in is checking for loose connections, wiring issue, cat/mouse eating wiring,moisture ingress.

Having the vehicle recovered to the service center is most likely better than sending a ranger in this case
 
And, called for update, and it's unknown at this time. They are waiting for Engineering to get back to them. Eek... So, not a fuse or anything simple but something they've not seen before. This should be good when it's deciphered!

I'm stopping by on the way home to get a loaner (car pool dropping me off), and will see if there's an update then. Brian in service was excellent so far in letting me know what they did and didn't know.
 
I had assortment of alarms, including the ones you listed on my P85+ couple of years ago. It was eventually traced to corroded ground connector at the 12V battery. The fix included cleaning the connector. Never had a problem again.

I think you are on the right track suspecting some kind of common system fault - and the common system imo is 12Vdc. I think that it is likely some kind of problem involving 12Vdc circuit continuity.
 
So, the update is that Engineering is still investigating and that Tysons is really just waiting on instructions and results. I stopped by and had a good chat with Brian and Michael about how the service process works and the new comms process we’ve heard a little about here where they text you every step of the way so you don’t need to call in for updates. The text messaging is also two-way so you can reply if you have questions or need clarification.

I said that that sounds wonderful as (to me) the more detail the better and phone calls just take up everyone’s time.

I also got an X 100D loaner that’s only a little older than my car, so that worked out well for a temporary replacement.

Hope HQ does chase this down quickly though; I’m wondering if it’s connected to the 2.5 hardware somehow, if it’s so hard to diagnose!
 
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So, while we’re waiting for an answer, here’s a setup question. I have the X 100D loaner that’s essentially the same as my car, except non-AP2.5 (it was made in June).

I have the settings set up exactly like mine (Auto Doors on, Passive Entry disabled, etc.). I need to double-click to unlock it and get the driver’s door to pop open, etc.

But when I approach this car with the fob, the ‘running lights’ and tail lights come on automatically. Tested this repeatedly and even rebooted the MCU (seems to be needed when you change Passive Entry). My car never did that until I unlocked it manually.

Which one is doing it correctly? I thought with Passive off, the car was supposed to do nothing until you used the fob? Perhaps my car had more wrong with it than I thought all along!

This one has 17.38.4 but we aren’t aware of any real changes from 17.38 (which mine has).

Edit: I've noticed while on a shopping trip in the loaner that Auto Doors Enabled, Passive Disabled seems to let the fob auto-unlock the doors, but not the car. Which is weird. That may be why the lights were flashing.

I approach the car, the lights flash, I can open the driver's door with a handle press, I get in, and of course I need to double-click the fob to unlock the *car* (the usual from Passive Disabled).

I'll need to test this further with Auto Doors both ways.. Auto Doors Disabled seems to secure everything, but you then lose the double-click doors opening. Arg....

Edit2: And now this seems to have been a one-time transient... Changing Auto Doors to Disabled and then back to Enabled (as I thought was the correct setting) now has fixed it.

The lights no longer flash on approach of the fob, and the car unlocks and the door opens on double-click. Passenger door then opens on second double-click.

If I hadn't been supporting computers for way too long, I'd say the car was haunted... :D
 
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Lol, actually going to pick it up now. From talking with the service manager yesterday, this appears to have been a rare firmware event that they said is unlikely to reoccur. After a week of research and testing by Fremont on my car and maybe others, that's the conclusion.

It's also permanently fixed in what we think is 17.42 (or whatever is next, since they use their versions that we don't see). So, I'm going to swap the loaner for my car now; it also got 17.40.1 overnight by my request.

They said that they had a couple of cars with this issue at Tysons recently, and I have no idea what the impact was nationwide, since it depends on the random event that had to happen to hit the code where the bad event lived to cause the car to die (no steering/airbags/sensors/whatever all those have in common). And the fix to stop that execution branch will be impossible with 17.42 (or whatever).

On the numbering, for example, he was saying: We'll load the current 17.40 on there for you, and I said (looking at ev-fw), there is no 17.40, only 17.40.1 and he said, no, it's 17.40... Then I said, but you're talking about the 'internal' versions and all we see is the 'development' numbers, and we had that chat for a few seconds. :D (I have no idea why Fremont started to confuse everyone with 'internal' and 'external' versions about six months ago...)

That's also where I was told the Homelink issue is fixed in 17.41 (or whatever, perhaps 17.41.6 now, since it seems to have a couple of versions...).
 
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Glad you are finally getting you X back.

Just got an update available alert on my Model S (which is still in service with leaking air suspension, but I hope to get it back today) and that car already has 2017.40.1 on it, so whatever it is getting will be the next version. Will let you know what version that ends up being.